Aunt of 9 gets to see 3 graduate

June 05, 2010|By Tamara Dietrich

When Carolyn Bowen Holter returned to Hampton last week after watching her nephew graduate from high school in Alabama, she found a note her husband had left on their front door — a heart with an arrow through it, and this message:

"Welcome home, Wife."

A small, loving gesture. But longtime readers of this column who've been following Carolyn's story will understand how deep and wide the meaning.

First, the graduating nephew is one of nine nieces and nephews Carolyn took in after their fathers were incarcerated. For years, she struggled through hunger and homelessness to raise them, "too afraid to give up," with the help of readers and church groups.

One of those readers — Michael Holter, a computer programmer — was so moved by her efforts that he became an anonymous benefactor, sending a check every month for five years into a special account. Often, Carolyn said then, those checks kept her brood from going hungry when the food stamps ran out.

Last year, Carolyn and Michael met for the first time. Then, against all odds, they quickly fell in love and married.

"Those days were kind of rough," Carolyn recalled last week, "but now I see the lining behind the clouds, and everything's just going so good. I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life. And my honey here is so good to me, girl."

In recent years, Carolyn's two brothers, their time served, strove to get their lives back together again. They took their children back in — eight in all. One brother relocated with his four children to Alabama; the other remains in Hampton with his four. Only one child, 15-year-old Brianna Haynesworth, remains with Carolyn.

Now she's watching three of her nieces and nephews graduate in rapid succession. Tevin Haynesworth graduated May 27 from E.B. Erwin High School in Birmingham, and Ernestine and Earnest Haynesworth will graduate from Hampton High on the 17th.

"They had it in a great big church in Alabama," Carolyn says of Tevin's ceremony. "I had some flashbacks about the struggle, the pain, the headaches, the rejection. But when I seen him turn to us and throw his hands up, he had nothing but happiness over his face. It brought all this joy to me and erased all the pain of the past. I know he's gonna go on to bigger and better things."

Tevin is trying to decide between college and the military, she said. Meanwhile, Ernestine is thinking of studying law, while Earnest, who excels in math and nearly had the grades for class valedictorian, is considering engineering.

"Given all they been through, they seem happy," Carolyn says. "That makes me happy. I count my blessings every day, just to know that something that I've done helped them get to where they needed to be."

Two years ago, Carolyn earned her GED. Now, she says, watching her former charges walk across a stage, eyes on college, is inspiring her to pursue a college degree, too.

It wasn't all a bed of roses, of course, and it isn't one now. A few of the older children are still struggling to find their "focus," Carolyn says. Four years ago, one boy pleaded guilty to rape and sexual battery and served time in a juvenile offender treatment program. And Carolyn is still working to improve her strained relationships with her brothers.

Michael pitches in to help where he can, she says — buying dresses and tuxes for proms, providing computers for college.

He tries to ease the adjustment for Brianna, having to go from being part of a tribe of siblings and cousins to being an only child.

"My husband treats her just as if she's his," Carolyn says. "She's spoiled."

The teen even had her own homecoming note waiting for her on the front door — "Welcome home, Brianna."

"It touched her heart," Carolyn says. "(If) she didn't feel at home then — she does now."

Brianna hung the note on her bedroom door.

"It's been a real blessing for me, as well," Michael says. "Having a friend and wife and companion. Plus her strong religious faith; I'm learning a lot from that."

"This man really makes my heart sing," Carolyn says. "Heart sing with joy. With joy. I don't take it lightly. I don't take it for granted. I just take it all as a blessing. It's something to meet up with the love of your life."